Garden Skills

There are those that are “blessed” with green thumbs and then there are the rest of us that have to work at it.  Basic Garden Skills can help us to become more green thumb people and in times of real need those skills can make the difference between eating and not eating.

A true assessment of our current gardening skills versus what we may need to know can give us a general direction to start heading for our long term survival in the worst case scenario.  Worst case scenario is that we have become displaced from our homes, tossed onto some new area and are starting from scratch. As on our new off grid ten acres and how are we going to set it up… Anything less than that would be great, but I’m going for the real survival skills scenario here.

What would some of those skills be:

Garden Plot.

Digging – would come to mind, but do we dig by hand a 100′ x 100′ garden? Remove all the stones/rocks and make it nice and neat rows? Remove all the brush/saplings/trees? Or do we work with the terrain that we find ourselves in and not against it?

• I would consider our first skill would be to determine what we could use efficiently in our first survival garden.
• Remove only the rock/stones that we can not use. We can use rocks/stones to help with cooling/heating the soil, stopping erosion, wind breaks for new seedlings, etc..
• Remove only the saplings/trees/bushes that won’t act as supports, windbreaks and fences.
• By using these rocks, bushes, etc and planting carefully around them we can save ourselves much needed time and energy.

Soil – We can’t run down to garden center and buy all the neat stuff for good soil.  So how skilled are we at making use of what is available?

• Top soil is just that it is the thin layer on top of the soil that is the richest from past years of decomposing.  We do NOT want to dig this down into the lower dirt.  By carefully scraping this top soil to the side, we can still dig down a little so the roots can develop, then add the topsoil back into the hole mixed with the following.
• Soil types,  come in all kinds, clay, sand, rocks, alkaline, acid, etc.. We can amend these soil types by adding compost/leaf mold from under other trees/bushes in area.  Vermicompost works very well for this as well, if you started your earthworm beds. By combining 1/3 worm castings, 1/3 compost/leaf mold, 1/3 existing soil, we have a good start on our garden soil.   Adding the mixture to the holes for our plants will conserve it and put it where it is needed most.
• Fertilizer – Get what you can, where you can.  Fish entrails/heads, droppings on game trails, etc.. Try to stay away from dog/coyote/wolf droppings, they are said to have diseases/parasites… A hot compost pile will cure most manure problems, should they arise.  Black mud from swampy areas, etc..
• Water is another concern.  We do not want to get too much water, nor not enough.  Situating our garden in a flood area, stream bed, too close to the banks of a river/stream can be devastating.  IF/when it floods our garden will be gone. Carrying water to a garden can really take it toll also.  Perhaps one answer might be to make small rain catchment areas within the garden, using any rocks, clay soil to form the basins and line them, to help slow down the seepage into lower levels of dirt.  A solar powered pump would come in real handy.

Now that we have our plot, solved our water problem and amended the soil, time to plant.